This book has been the most liberating experience for me in this last decade.

As I was driving to work this morning, it hit me. I got it.

I know now why the fear was lifted.

It is as if I took all of my clothes off and ran around naked for a while and life was not so frightening anymore.

You are probably thinking, what in the world is she talking about?

Here she goes again.

But it really is the closest metaphor I can find.

When I came out with my new book which is truly the way I understand reality, ultimately the last piece of the puzzle of life after loss, I felt like I had to be without my clothes in front of a lot of people. Speaking my truth.

In the days prior to the book release I would go to bed at night and be so grateful tomorrow was so far away. 8 hours away. That’s how scared I was.

And look at me now, maybe still standing there without my outfit and being ok with it.

So, here are a few things to remember about fear and how to live without it.

1. Anticipating taking your clothes off may be more scary than actually doing it. Thinking about fear takes much longer time than being afraid. Being afraid is mostly short lived.

3. When you wait in anticipation of fear, the waiting becomes anxiety. Paralysis. Then it moves to shame. Hiding. Forgetting what you were supposed to do to begin with. Amnesia sets in.

4. And who you were supposed to become, becomes someone else’s destiny. Yes, you read right. We can miss out on our destiny. By prolonging the clothes removal. By being afraid to be in our boldness. Destiny needs expression and a vessel to express itself. If you are not going to say yes to it, it will go and find another expresser, carrier. Creator.

5. Destiny is part of the collective to begin with. And it distributes itself accordingly. I remember years ago an interview Elizabeth Gilbert did on the show On Being, where she talks about how she didn’t write a fictional story she was supposed to, and it found its way to someone else. The exact same story. Someone else wrote it. So be sure that you really do want to stay in the waiting room, the hiding, the anticipation of fear. Because your destiny, your plan, your dream, your wish will go to someone else who is ready to go out into the wild and look fear in the eyes.

As for me, I realized that running around naked did not kill me. It gave me my destiny. It made me me. It liberated me. It allowed for all the things I was holding in to be expressed.

Where Did You Go? Took me outside of my box and threw me so far away that I could never find my way back.

This is it. The boxed in life is over.

I put together a little guide for you so you can find your way out of that box of yours also.

Brace yourself.

The Guide To Being Outrageous Before, After And While Grieving.

Yes, you read right. This is a guide for all humans even before they experience tragic reasons to live fully. Enough with waiting to be shaken so much that we have to change our lives only when something terribly bad happens.

Here we go.

1. Are you making too many people happy?

If most people in your life are happy with you there is a very good chance that you are not living your truth. Of course, there are exceptions to this. Just make sure you are the exception. And if that’s the case, good for you. If not, keep reading.

2. Who are you afraid you are going to lose?

Here is a fact for you. The ones who love you, will still love you when you go outside your box. They will recognize you. Follow you out and come with you. The so-called outrageous things you are doing, are not outrageous for them. They are just more parts of you they can love.

3. How much do you really care about yourself?

One of the biggest discoveries I made was that I did not really care about myself much at all. Pleasing other people directly or indirectly makes you the last choice. If, even a choice at all. Once you start to make the top of the ‘pleasing people’ list. You actually start to love yourself. I never thought self-love can come from outrageous actions and fearless choices. I am sitting here shaking my head with this insight. Even depression can lift. Even weight loss can happen. It is one of the most beautiful experiences I have ever had.

4. Why are you putting yourself and your life on stage?

Fear comes to you when you are worrying about what other people will think of your decision. What will they think about your competency, your abilities? Failure is truly just a stage show. Not a behind-the-scenes experience. We fail in front of people. But we fail ourselves behind-the-scenes. The stage show is the ego’s life, not your soul’s. The soul just wants to express itself in art, science, words, and creations. It doesn’t care what other people will think about its creations. It is about expression, not measurement. I've had some harsh words with my ego lately. I told her to stop. Enough with it all. You see my ego will keep trying to put a box around me wherever I go. I just have to outrun her. And so do you.

5. Is your need to be liked more important than your loyalty to yourself?

I always thought that loss taught me to be myself more. To live life my way. And it did. And I have. But did I really live life completely on my terms? Did I really live the way I deeply needed? Nope. I still needed for everyone to like me. I wanted to be a good friend. The likable teacher. The worthy partner. The intensely present mother. The list is long. When you stop caring about being chosen, being important to others, being worthy of someone’s attention, you die in your old life and you are born in a much bigger one.

Your goals change. Your dreams get updated in an instant. You actually find out who you really are. You say things that surprise you. You do things that shock even you.

You might as well change your name too because if you keep choosing yourself versus the world you become someone else so radically different that the only thing that will stay the same might just be the name you were given.

6. How do you start to live life out of the box?

And if you are wondering how to begin your life out of the box, here is what I would say--sit down and list all the things you do for others that you don’t enjoy at all. Not the things you do to pay your bills. Not talking about that. This is not this kind of blog.

This is about the thousands of things you do every day that you don’t enjoy but it keeps you on stage.

A very important distinction.

So, for example:

For your job: List all the things you do every day at the office that you dislike that you do because of how it looks to your boss, to your peers, and to your team. They hold back the dragon in you. I know what you're thinking. The dragon? Yes, the dragon.

This is about living outrageously and boldly, not about just being happy and content. You have a dragon inside of you that has been held back because you think if he/she is let loose the stage will be messed up and everyone will think you've lost your mind. Make a mess. They will recover. It is your life. Not theirs.

For your home: If you live in a house you don’t enjoy but worry what your kids, your partner, your friends will think about your move, that goes on your list. Get it sold.

For your relationships: If you are in a relationship that is good enough but doesn’t deeply satisfy you, yup, it goes on your list. When you move out of the relationship box you are freeing two people at once. This is an act of kindness. Yup.

For your closet: If you have clothes in your closet you wear because they fit in with everyone else’s perception of you, it goes on that list. This one might be harder even than the others. You probably don’t even know what kind of clothes you would choose for yourself. It’s been that long.

One last thing for you to remember.

True self-expression is a human act.

Without it, we perish.

Without it, we self destruct.

Without it, we only exist in shadows.

A shadow existence can destroy a whole life. With suicide. With crime. With lack of care for our environment and world. For other humans. For other planets. For other species. Yup. I am going to keep things out of my box.

This is much more important than a blog, or some silly self-help advice.

Stay out of your box, far away from your own shadow. And if you ever find yourself in someone else’s shadow. Run. Run faster than your legs can take you.

My wish for you is that you find your way to days so outrageous that you pinch yourself.

To new friendships with people who like you not because you fit in their life but because they love how they fit in yours.

May you inspire other people’s adventures out into the wild and open seas.

And last but not least, you are born out of an expression of someone else’s quest to choose themselves.

Now it is your turn.

And if you have gone through tragic losses like I have, the longer you wait to step out of the boxes, waiting rooms and shadows, the less you will like yourself.

This is truly the most personal decision you will ever make.

And the only one that can ever save your life.

With outrageousness,

Christina

P.S. Grab my new book Where Did You Go? and journey with me and many others in our private Where Did You Go? Facebook group. The link is in the resources section of the book. See you all there. Journeying with all of you to other worlds has been one of the most fulfilling and outrageous experiences of my life. You don’t know how much this new book has saved my life. https://www.amazon.com/Where-Did-You-Go-Life-Changing/dp/0062689622

P.P.S. The Life Reentry Weekend is now open for registration. This is our second annual Life Reentry Weekend in Scottsdale, Arizona on June 20th. We have 193 tickets available. Come and be in the company of the most inspiring beautiful people from around the world and spend 3 days together in one of the most incredible resorts in the U.S. I can’t wait to journey with you, re-enter with you and re-invent every aspect of your life AFTER LOSS with you. REGISTER HERE: https://lifereentry.com/the-life-reentry-weekend-2019/

I saw Mary Poppins Returns movie trailer appearing every day as I was getting ready for the release of Where Did You Go?

But I never put the two together.

How could have I known?

How could I have foreseen such a thing?

That they were not only being released at the exact same time, but that people from all over the world would write to tell me how many parallels they have been finding between the book and the movie.

The joy and excitement that was shared in these messages was palpable.

The connections were indeed many, and some quite extraordinary, all the way to the yellow rubber ducky. For those reading the book you know what I mean.

One thing that I learned in the last few weeks is that there are some things that are so beautifully divine and profound that we just sit back in awe of it all.

Today’s letter is about all the things that Mary Poppins has always been teaching us.

And as it happens Where Did You Go? Also.

1. Mary Poppins: Anything can happen if you let it.

Understanding the dynamic between you and the world around you is a fundamental part of your journey ahead. Acknowledging that you are both the observer and creator of your world will allow you to let incredible and magical things happen in your life. Miracles left and right. Abundance of synchronicities daily. Anything can happen, really. From the lottery win to your dream job. To a life after loss that is beyond anything you can imagine.

There is only one way to make something impossible. Seeing it as impossible. Everything you see is a subjective experience. Everything that exists in your life is your version of reality. When we remove ourselves from this life and go further out and see everything from our higher self or as I call it in the book Superwatcher Self we are able to observe that the structure of our reality is not fixed. It can be changed to include impossible things. I struggled with this concept for the longest time. And when I slowly started making my seemingly impossible dreams come true then my reality started to change with it.

4. Jane Banks: Are you sure this is quite safe? Mary Poppins: Not in the slightest. Ready! Off we go.

Our brain will tell us how unsafe it is to believe in a new reality. It will first try to tell you, that you are a fool. People will laugh at you. Make fun of you. You will lose your credibility, your friends if you tell them that we never die. That we can change our life if we believe in the impossible. That last one, they will call it wishful thinking. Then if you keep going, they will tell you that it is dangerous to believe in such things. To live your life from a place of miracles, divinity and seeing the unseen. They will also tell you that the unseen hides danger. You see, all of these are beliefs that are constructed by us to keep us inside boundaries.

We have to start the journey not knowing if it is safe, or real. We have to trust something inside of us so we can begin.

And maybe just maybe we can change the things we are afraid of. I am not saying we can go as far as to remove fear and loss. But we can bring in more good things.

5. Mary Poppins: Open different doors. You might find a you there that you never knew was yours.

There are so many different versions of you. And me. And everyone you meet. Your story has many versions. Versions that exist at the same exact time. There is a place within us that can open different doors, choose different stories and walk different paths. Don’t be misled by the reality in front of you that tells you there is no door. No other way. There are indeed infinite ways. Infinite doors.

Even those who have never experienced anything profound, deep down they know the truth about our reality. The truth of our reality lives in movies, novels, stories on the big and small screen. Even if we try to live our days without magic and wonder it will spill through in other ways. You see, it is inside the collective consciousness. The truth can never be hidden.

If you haven’t seen the movie go see it.

If you haven’t read my new book go read it.

And if you don’t do either I have no doubt that you will experience miracles that will make you question everything.

You have to have a strong sense of self. A clear picture of who you are, what you stand for.

What it is you believe in. You have to be tree-like, like the trees with huge trunks, that can’t be destroyed in bad weather. You must claim your place in the world, and not be shaken or fallen.

Did you know that the world’s oldest tree is in Sweden and it is nearly 10,000 years old? The oldest tree has a very interesting way of surviving harsh weather conditions. It has the ability to make a new trunk when the old one has died. It pushes the old one out, and the new one comes in. Nice. The second oldest tree is nearly 5,000 years old. This one doesn’t push out a new trunk. It keeps the same old trunk. It lives in California. But its exact location is a secret. So it can be protected from the world.

One might wonder why would anyone want to destroy the oldest tree? But there are millions of people who would burn it, cut it, and be proud of doing so.

Don’t ask why. Don’t wonder. Just like I don’t want you to wonder when others try to destroy who you are. Your sense of self will be questioned many times. It will be attacked. It will be shoved to the ground. You have to persevere. You have to be like the very old tree, the 10,000 year old.

When they least expect it push out a new trunk but still be the same tree.

This last year I learned so much about publicly being my true self. My dragon self as you will soon find out. And since this is the last message in a bottle for 2018, I want to share my 5 dragon truths with you.

1. Don’t eliminate yourself.

We live in a world that likes to keep things the same. And I am not just talking about the larger world, but the world within your family, your friend group, your workplace, you know the micro cosmos. When you try to say, write, speak of something that is not just out of the ordinary but outside of their scope, they may shame you. Call you names. Punish you. Ignore you. Run away from you. Once you get brought down, you quickly learn that speaking your mind hurts and you lose your preciousness by trying to be like everyone else. You hide the weird thoughts, the strangeness of you so they don’t take you down again. Instead, you take yourself down so that your tree is hidden and protected. Just like the tree in California. But what if I told you that you can build a new trunk and you don’t have to hide. Wouldn’t you come out and be yourself, and show off your weird ability to push out a new trunk? I bet you would.

2. The dragon is kept asleep.

We live in a seemingly simple world. People wake up, go to work, come home, have dinner, go to bed and sleep their way to the next day. They watch the silly news, some of them believe in a cult-like religion, some don’t believe in anything. Some just hover in the middle, hiding. Thinking that everything is manila. Grey. But it really isn’t. Underneath the simplicity of our lives, a big dragon is kept asleep. Systems are in place to keep the dragon mind from waking up. And this is when knowing your true self is key. If you are a dragon whisperer you have to stay awake. Until you meet all the other dragon whisperers and your true selves can’t be so easily dismissed. But it is a hard thing to do, at first anyways.

3. Truth tellers, find true lovers.

This has been the biggest truth I learned this year. As you bring your true self further out telling everyone what’s on your mind, the people who love you, will keep walking with you. They will stand by your side and be proud of your truth telling. The ones who pretend to love you and like you, will hide fast. And they will do it very quietly. If you blink you will miss their hiding places. Those never liked you, loved you, respected you. Forgive them. This is about them, not you. They live their life trying not to wake up their dragon. Seeing you waking up yours makes them scared. That’s all. They do have special, weird abilities like you but they can’t find their true self and don’t really wish for their dragon to wake up. It’s ok. We will come back for them, when our dragon selves are completely awake.

Those things were fine, but they were not what you were destined for. Unfortunately, this is where you will feel loss, grief and you will have to learn how to mourn the old life. It is a part of the dragon waking.

When your true self is here, it knows all the non-truths about your life, and it tries to wipe them out fast. That is when you start to lose jobs, money, friends, status and you have to keep yourself inside the truth. It is like jumping in a tub with ice cubes. Or inside the ocean in the winter. You are going to be cold, and you will want to get out. Don’t. The freeze will not last.

5. Forgive those whose dragons are still sleeping.

This is when it goes from the freeze to the float. From rejection to acceptance. From the asleep to the awake. From routine to the dragon. After you tell your truth and you go through all of the above you have finally escaped the cycle. Some of the other awakened dragons start to find you. And together you are like the tree that pushes out the new trunk. Do you know what happens then? This is my favorite part. The people who hid themselves when they first saw your dragon, unhide themselves and start to wave. They try to sneak back in your life, pretending to have been friends with your dragon all along. You must forgive them. And take them by the hand so they too can wake up. You see, they don’t even know they are asleep. And seeing your dragon fire may get them startled and awake for the first time in forever.

My dragon woke up fully 2 years ago, when I said yes to writing Where Did You Go? The rest is history.

May you find your dragon self in 2019 and make it through the freeze, rejection, shame and the grief of your old life. I promise you my dragon friend, it will be worth it.

When my husband died in 2006, I discovered that the distance between life and death was very short. It became very clear that we are here one moment and gone the next.

Death is immediate.

I may even go as far as to say that death is not inside our linear time. If you blink you would miss death. It comes and it takes us outside of this reality, and moves us into a place outside of a linear existence. The place outside of time is a real place, but since we understand life through the concept of time we can’t understand that this place exists.

But it does.

It is also non local, meaning -- you can’t find it the way you find everything else on a map. It does not have an actual location. And since death has no time and no location we think it is the end. But it isn’t.

Death is a doorway into a different existence. And because I wanted to discover what this existence is like without dying, I studied, researched, learned and then took all of it and built a bridge, an opening, a way in. And I have been going in and out of there every day for 2 years. The bridge takes you deeper and deeper the longer you travel on, and the more you frequent on it.

I wrote each step in my new book Where Did You Go? So you could go too. You see, this place which we call the afterlife is a place we can visit while living and we can use its wisdom in this life. Here are some of the things I learned about life while I was visiting the afterlife in these last two years.

1. Miracles are real and can be frequent

We use the word miracle because we perceive synchronicities, unexpected healing, visitations from our loved ones as rare phenomena. But the truth is, there is a deeper reality that tells us life can be full of miracles and wishes fulfilled. And we have to start to view our life from this miraculous place. Once we believe that there could be daily miracles, we start to find them everywhere. It may appear as magic but not to those who understand how the hidden levels of reality work. One thing to keep in mind is that you are surrounded by miracles waiting to happen if only you start believing in them.

2. Death is a doorway to a bigger room

The person you lost only died in your reality but not in theirs. For them, everything changed, and they still exist. They want you to understand that, so they can tell you some things they never got to say when they were here with you, living in this existence. I learned over the last two years that it is not just for our own healing that we must connect with our loved ones, but for them also. Healing needs to take place on both sides. This was surprising to me, when I was informed of that. Of course it makes sense now, but at the time I wanted to write this book to help the living. Because I did not think the ones who are no longer with us needed this too. Now I know.

3. You can talk to the people you lost every day

There are many ways to talk about our loved ones, and you must find your own way to do so. How? Try different types of doors. You can go to a well known medium who has gone back and forth through the door many times. You can do different programs that teach you how to connect. Of course you can also read Where Did You Go? But I want you to know there is a way there, find it, go to them and let them tell you the things they have been wanting to tell you. For those of you who worry that this will activate your grief, I want to say that it actually helps you heal at a deeper level than anything else I have ever seen. Trust the process and believe in what you receive. Don’t question your own ability to connect. You have been born with this gift, I am sure you have heard of kids connecting better and faster than adults. It is because we are meant to. And like Lady Gaga would say, you are born this way.

4. We don’t have to wait for our loved ones to visit us, we can visit them

Ever since I can remember I heard people ask me and others things such as have you had any signs? Or has he visited you in your dreams? I am here to tell you that this is a two way street. We are also meant to visit with them. This is still a relationship. Different of course. But still a relationship that needs both parties to put effort forward. I can hear them laughing at that. And telling me why would anyone think that all of a sudden they have to do all the work? It makes sense right?

5. Life is our own creation

Half way through Where Did You Go? you will discover that the path changes, there is a plot twist as someone called it. As I was traveling back and forth to the reality we cannot see, the more life I found. It appears that the place we go when we are no longer physically here, is also the place we get to create life from.

It is as if afterlife is where creation stems from. It is not after life it is Life Beyond Life. It is where everything starts from. Your dreams. Your wishes. Your whole life is created from there.

And you can create with your loved ones too. This is my favorite part.

6. Your loved ones want you to know they did not die

Imagine if you are waving at someone everyday and they can’t see you. This is how it feels for them. They are trying to get your attention but you are not looking for them. Look for them so they can be seen. They are waving at you and want you to wave back.

7. There are no ghosts

I used to be afraid of ghosts, and anything to do with death. After all, movies, media and the whole world it seems, makes it all look and sound creepy. No wonder we are so afraid. I believe that ghosts are holographic creations of our minds. Our loved ones are not ghosts, they are energy and consciousness that is around us. When we do see them, it is their way of making themselves known in a holographic way, as this is the way we are told that we are able to see them. But when we start to see them with our eyes closed then they will come to us in different ways. The ghost industry is way too big and in many ways wrong. It is as if they want to make us believe in this very scary world. When all this is, is the most beautiful world you can ever imagine. One day we will all experience it first-hand.

8. Heaven is for real

Yes it is. Not that you needed me to tell you this, but it is. The place from which this reality is being projected from is where Heaven is located. Which also includes the people we think we lost. It is where light comes from and gives us this image of this world. It is actually called the Holographic principle and there have been studies on this and it has been scientifically proven. This reality is an image being projected from the 2D dimension where light, energy, and our consciousness exists always.

9. God/source/universe/ is the first creator, who observed you into existence

There was a first creator, who observed our creation. You see, reality here cannot exist without someone observing it and therefore creating it. Observation equals creation. And there is so much to say about this, but what you need to know here is that unless an earlier form of consciousness observed us, we could not have existed. When there is nobody looking at the stars we are being told that the stars cannot be there. This is one of the most fascinating theories out there. Einstein used to say “I want to think that the moon is there when I am not looking at it.” Even he didn’t want to consider that possibility but it was one that he had to.

10. You are never alone

I know it feels like you are all alone with nobody by your side, but one thing I know for sure is that not only your loved one is by your side but many others. You are surrounded by angels, guides, loved ones and a whole cosmos. Not only do you have company but they want to help, connect and be a part of your journey. Let them in.

There are two different kind of re-entries after loss. One where we start to build a new life for ourselves. And another where we have experiences with life beyond life that allow us to bring forth certainty that love never dies. And you are never left behind. This type of life reentry cannot be missed. I have helped many people start over after the loss of a loved one and one question that never goes away until it is answered is WHERE DID YOU GO?

My own answer is, that he never went anywhere, he has always been here.

I look forward to your own answers that can only be given through your own lenses and experiences.

I started this letter at a time when nobody was writing about grief, or even about grief and the Holidays.

And those who were, were not discussing the elephant in the room.

The loneliness.

The deep sadness of the Holidays.

You see, happy seasons, are the saddest seasons for people who are grieving.

Even the sun shining brightly in the winter, can feel like loss.

Even bells ringing.

Carols.

People with gift bags walking down the streets can set you off.

The triggers are so many.

I put together a small list that can help just a little during the next few weeks.

Make this the most untraditional holiday you have ever had. If you normally celebrate with the tree, the big dinner and the works, try something completely different this year. Go to the beach instead, or stay in bed all day if you need to. Choose your way of the holidays and don’t feel guilty. This is YOUR life.

Speak the truth every day. Let it out. Scream it if you have to. It is YOUR voice.

Make a wish, but don’t stop there! Take one small action and use the Holiday season to begin something new. To make that wish come true. That is when you will start seeing the impossible become possible. Time does not heal all wounds, action does.

Change something inside your house. Even something that nobody else can see but you.

If you get invited to dinner and you don’t feel like going, say NO thank you and go and do whatever you want. Yes, whatever you want.

Stop buying gifts for people you don’t care about. As a matter of fact if you don’t feel like buying gifts don’t buy them. Don’t be trapped in that fake polite space after loss. You don’t need this pressure. Free yourself from the gift expectations and send an email to the people in your life telling them that you are going to do holidays your way this year.

Remember, it is just a few days of craziness and you have survived much worse, you can do this.

Buy something for yourself that is very unlike you. Building your new identity can start as a holiday gift to you.

Above all find a moment to say a prayer for yourself.

And in that prayer ask for what you need not just for the holidays but for every day after that.

This holiday season be true to you.

Even if it means people won’t like you anymore.

You have been through really hard times, who cares what they think.

I am not the most popular person, I don’t pretend to like people, or visit with anyone I don’t really want to see.

Loss has taught us that life is short and we should not be wasting trying to please other people when we are dying inside.